New Challenge: Stronger Legs with One Leg Squats

Now that I’m a few weeks from another marathon I think it time to address one or two things. And one of those things is the need to strengthen my legs.

A while back we discussed squats. Now I’m going to try to learn to do one-leg squats.

So far, so bad! With practice and perseverance, however, I hope to manage some. Here are a few links to articles and videos I found useful. First, this article gives quite some detail about them, how to do them and why they are good for you. As for the advantages of one-leg squats, or pistols as they are sometimes called, the article states:

“Pistols have a wide array of athletic and real-world applications. The fundamental skill that pistols teach is exerting power through the entire range of motion of your stance, while on one leg. Whether running, jumping, or changing directions in an athletic competition, or walking, sitting, or standing in your daily affairs, powerful legs enable us to do what we do better, and with greater ease. The combination of skills that pistol practice develops simultaneously– balance, strength, endurance, flexibility and coordination– make it one of the most useful and important exercises to learn.

Here’s a handy video:

And another one with rather a charming (and good) but brief explanation:

I’ll report back on progress, if any, in due course.

Posted by Xavier.

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

This entry was posted on June 10, 2009 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “New Challenge: Stronger Legs with One Leg Squats”

Good call. My physio prescribed one-legged squats a while back to correct weak glutes leading to over-stress on the hamstrings. It seemed to work.

I’m sure there’s room for different opinions but his advice was:
1. don’t let your leg go closer to the floor than a 90 degree angle at the knee (ie keep upper leg parallel to the floor) to ease pressure on the knee and
2. use a swiss-ball against your back on a wall to prevent back strain – so you’re leaning back against the ball
3. use weights to increase difficulty

It has to be said, however, that my physio doesn’t look quite as good as the presenter there. Interesting choice of video!